Quote from: SpikeThe last four years or so have seen a great increase in the amount of political reading I engage in. Specifically, the reading of opinion pieces by various pundits and talking heads...

Both sides seem incapable of telling the entire truth, of letting the reader make up their own minds. I don't mind bias, but hiding and obfuscating facts isn't bias, its sign of your own weak arguments.  If you aren't deliberately doing it... if you think your arguments aren't weak, then don't preserve me from hard counterarguments to 'save space'.

Columnists are not the place to look for reasoned arguments and carefully marshalled facts. That's not really what they're hired to do. They're hired to generate heat, not light. Fact is, most of the market for current affairs prefers heat to light.

If you really want to keep informed about politics, economics, and public policy without all the partisan hysteria, do yourself a favour and get a subscription to the Economist. Or borrow it from the library. But you aren't going to find what you're looking for from American commentators, especially television/radio commentators.

Quote from: Kyle AaronThe average political candidate wouldn't survive a high school debate. That they can survive journalists show how piss-weak journalism has become.

Journalists works for businesses. Those businesses want to make money. The media gives its customers what they want.

You want to blame someone for how lame journalism has become? Blame the 90 per cent of your fellow citizens who will turn the channel as soon as soon as anything substantive, rational, and the least bit complex appears on their television.

Quote from: walkerpAt some point, green has to be macho, doesn't it?  I mean definitely not the I buy organic diapers for my child that I drive around to play dates kind of urban greenie that are popular today, but what about the rugged, forest ranger types or Earth First militants?  That seems kind of macho.

You've just noted a division not everyone notices. It's one that shouldn't trouble me, but it often does. A lot of "green" people don't spend very much time in the wilderness, but only consume it passively, and it distorts their priorities. They read about environmental issues in Sierra Club newsletters and publications like Scientific American and Discover - which are so completely filled with environmental issues that I've canceled my subscription to each; look, I know about the environment, I was subscribing to you for information on, you know, all of science, not this one damned thing - and not by being in a watershed and watching partially-treated sewage being dumped into it.

I'm a, well, at least a "forest ranger type," although I'm not sure if it's kosher for me to self-identify as "rugged," and these city folk don't really know much about the environment as it is, only the environment as it's shown to them. I love their money, and they've got lots of it, and it's done a lot of good, but there's still something that grates about listening to some douche go on and on about changing sea levels when he doesn't know that his local rivers are running dry and he could do things personally to change that.

And perhaps that's a part of my objection: sure, I'm troubled that they don't bother to enjoy the nature they want to protect, but what really drives me mad is that they think buying a Prius and writing a check is all they need to do. They still shower twice a day, use a dishwasher, overwash their clothes, run the TV six hours a day, leave their computers on 24/7, and eat prepackaged food made in factories which pump out awful, awful crap. They've made changes: we couldn't have gotten where we are on issues like recycling if it weren't for the ignorant passion of city greens, and I appreciate the hell out of them, as a class, for standing up as consumers. But I wish they'd stop fucking consuming so much!

Real change requires that we ourselves make real change. Yelling at factory owners produces results, certainly, but not buying so much of the shit they make would produce superior results. But people don't want to sacrifice more than money, or make changes that their neighbors won't notice, and maybe that's because they don't spend enough time in the parts of the world they're trying to fix.

So shut off your damned electricity-gulping television and go outside. Walk outside the city limits, and find a small river. Walk up it. Do this every single day, until you realize you don't want or need the television: then give it to someone who was going to buy a new one. [Don't want to build another if we don't have to!] You'll be more fit, you'll use less environment-damaging energy, and you'll learn to love the earth as we rugged forester types do: personally, not vicariously.

Couldn't agree with you more, Engine.

I could go on about the yuppie-greens, but I'll start to have a freakout.  Let me summarize it to say that their greenness almost always stops at status, "health" and "security".  I put the last two in quotations because they are basically advertising code words that don't have anything to do with the actual word.  So health is anti-bacterial wipes and security is a giant SUV (safer in an accident).  I'd put cleanliness and sanitation under health as well, but they are such massive categories of consumption that they probably deserve their own.

So they are all for community composting as long as the compost is driven far from their neighbourhood, or they'll by organic juice but also buy bottled water because it's "purer".

Oh shit, I almost started ranting again.  

Back to the positive.  Yes, walk to the river.  Give your TV to someone who will use it. Excellent suggestions.

Quote from: EngineBut I wish they'd stop fucking consuming so much!

Do you mean like buying computers? Using them to post on RPG boards about environmental issues? Heck, like turning you computer on at all? Pot-Kettle-Black.

Bill

Quote from: walkerpwell the first one I went to was one of the most horrible crime stories I have read in quite a while, where they specifically emphasised, in the guise of being objective, the details of the torture, rape and murder of a white women by several black ex-cons.

Normally, I don't post the most graphic links because of that reaction.  I didn't, for example, post links of the movie of what went on at Abu Ghraib during Saddam and there were some other equally horrific incidents that I've avoided posting links to.  But I think your illustrates the problem with being "objective".  Do we make crime stories more objective by hiding the gory details and the politically incorrect details about he perpetrators or does that bias the story in a different way, making the crime seem less awful and the race relations less messy than they really are?  Isn't avoiding outrage as much of a bias as encouraging it?  How is selectively reporting the details to avoid possible interpretations that you don't approve of "objective"?

Quote from: walkerpYou were using that to make some kind of point, I guess, but I couldn't see what there was to understand and after that I stopped following any of your links.

My point was probably that people have a very different impression of events when all of the gory details are known to them than when they've only seen reports sanitized for their protection.  Hearing that a woman was sexually assaulted and killed by a faceless perpetrator creates a very different impression than reading the details does.  Similarly, we saw pictures of what American soldiers did to detainees in Abu Ghraib and think they were awful but most people only have a vague idea of what Saddam Hussein did there.  But if you watch the video of what Saddam's people did (which includes cutting off finger, hands, tongues, and so on), then it puts a different perspective on the severity of not only what Saddam did but on what the Americans did in comparison.  It's easy to be aloof and morally relative when everything is an academic abstract.

Quote from: walkerpMy point in that throwaway line was those are the kinds of articles that act like they are reporting info, when their main goal is to drive a very specific fear-based political agenda.

But I don't think that's really your problem.  Your problem seems to be that the article wasn't sanitized of details to serve a political agenda that you approve of.  Political bias is created by omission just as much as it's created by inclusion.

Quote from: HinterWeltDo you mean like buying computers?

I haven't bought a computer in ten years. The computer I use has been tuned over those ten years to use the least wattage possible, because it's the heart of my recording studio, and low wattage means low heat means fewer fans means lower noise.

Quote from: HinterWeltUsing them to post on RPG boards about environmental issues?

I post only, you might notice, from work, where the computer is on, anyway.

Quote from: HinterWeltHeck, like turning you computer on at all?

No one is saying, "Never use electricity." What I'm saying is that it sure would be nice if people used less electricity. My studio equipment is literally the only electricity-using property I own.

Bill, I take your point, but you don't know anything at all about my life and how I live it. For three months last year, I used no electricity at all, because I lived outside the entire time. I have never used air conditioning. I don't cook most of my food, and I grow a tremendous proportion of it, watering it with water from a nearby stream, which filters back into said stream through a bed of aggregate. Rather than buy a new car, I drive a 22-year-old car that anyone else would put in a junkyard, which gets 32 miles per gallon, which I only repair myself, and from which I have removed all excess weight so as to improve efficiency, and I mean shit like I took out the interior of the car, as well as the entire air conditioning system. [But not my subwoofer; again, no one is saying "no impact," I'm saying, "please lower your impact."] I don't own a bed, because I won't buy something new when there's no necessity for it: I sleep on the hardwood floor. And I'm only scratching the surface of the differences between my life and that of the Prius-owning caricature of an environmentalist I'm objecting to.

Before you start throwing pots around, maybe drop the accusatory tone and just ask questions like someone who isn't a dick.

Quote from: EngineBill, I take your point, but you don't know anything at all about my life and how I live it.
Before you start throwing pots around, maybe drop the accusatory tone and just ask questions like someone who isn't a dick.

And now you get it. You don't know me, but you are o.k. lecturing me on a device that take 10 times the petroleum products to create by weight than a car.

My point is not that you are using a computer to criticize the world but that you use a very broad brush to do so.

Because, yes, you do not know me and how I live. And you know what? I don't feel the need to preach to others about my "superiority".

So, maybe drop the accusatory tone and just ask questions like someone who isn't a dick.

Bill

Edit: To be perfectly clear, my point is to let you know how you (and others) sound when you preach. For the record, I do not disagree that people should enjoy wilderness more, explore nature. That is a good thing and would likely bring a better understanding of the environment.

Quote from: EngineBefore you start throwing pots around, maybe drop the accusatory tone and just ask questions like someone who isn't a dick.

Then stop being a sanctimonious dick. You're going to end up being Kyle's clone. See, here's the problem - we get it. You're hard core. you think you know the way to go about things, otherwise it wouldn't upset you if someone tried to be good about the environment by recycling and turning off some lights.

So even though you're putting all kinds of disclaimers on it, you're being a dick who thinks he can judge everyone else - by explaining how you live, even though you say you don't expect it, you are, by implication, setting the standard by which others can, and apparently should, be measured. How nice for you.

People make all kinds of changes, some little, some big. The fact that you are willing and able to sleep on a hardwood floor and drive (and repair) your own car says nothing of the suburban housewife who uses the dishwasher because she needs the extra time to bike to the grocery store to save gas. Her small change is no less important than yours.

So please dial it down a notch, Engine. This is more self-serving than usual for you. You're better than it.

Quote from: HinterWeltAnd now you get it. You don't know me, but you are o.k. lecturing me on a device that take 10 times the petroleum products to create by weight than a car.

Presuming you're talking about my computer at work, I have no choice in the matter or manner of its creation.

Quote from: HinterWeltBecause, yes, you do not know me and how I live. And you know what? I don't feel the need to preach to others about my "superiority".

You put that word in quotes, so I'm assuming I used it. Let me check. Hmm, that's strange, I didn't use it at all. You must, then, be using it in the "air quotes" sense of the word, so let me put it to you this way: I don't think I'm better than anyone else, because I don't think the word better - or superior - has any meaning beyond that which we assign it. We could say, for instance, I'm a superior conservationist, meaning I'm superior at conserving, but that doesn't imply any sort of quality about me.

I do feel the need to preach - pontificate, evangelize, however you'd like to put it - about environmental conservation and sustainability, because most people are not particularly aware of it, and much of what they're being told is false, distorted, or not, in my own personal opinion, that meaningful. I feel no shame for encouraging others to conserve resources.

Quote from: HinterWeltSo, maybe drop the accusatory tone and just ask questions like someone who isn't a dick.

Oh, nice rhetorical turnaround! Except that I'm not the one making accusations about you,* so it actually doesn't make any sense, it's just a cheap rhetorical tool to score a point, which is, in my opinion, stupid bullshit.

Quote from: HinterWeltEdit: To be perfectly clear, my point is to let you know how you (and others) sound when you preach.

You failed utterly and completely at that task, Bill. I still don't know how you think I [and others] sound when I [we] preach, because you said nothing at all about that subject at all. What you did was incorrectly identify me as a hypocrite, and then refuse to admit it.

I don't know how you live, Bill: perhaps you're very conservation-aware, and do all sorts of things to improve the quality of life on this planet. In that case - listen closely - I wasn't talking about you.

Quote from: James J SkachThen stop being a sanctimonious dick.

Okay, so the rule is, I can't rant about the environment? I ranted about the media, earlier, without a ripple in the pond. Is there something about the environment, in particular, that makes it bad if I rant about it?

Quote from: James J SkachYou're hard core. you think you know the way to go about things, otherwise it wouldn't upset you if someone tried to be good about the environment by recycling and turning off some lights.

I do not perceive the logic in that statement. People seem to be reading some sense of superiority into my words that I not only did not intend, but which I have repeatedly stated I don't intend.

Quote from: James J SkachSo even though you're putting all kinds of disclaimers on it, you're being a dick who thinks he can judge everyone else...

Well, that's shitty. So, if I expressly state things like, "I don't think everyone has to live this way," but then say, "I live this way," I'm judging them and being a dick? We just ignore mitigating statements as "disclaimers?" Wipe them out in favor of what people want to read into what I've said?

Quote from: James J SkachThe fact that you are willing and able to sleep on a hardwood floor and drive (and repair) your own car says nothing of the suburban housewife who uses the dishwasher because she needs the extra time to bike to the grocery store to save gas. Her small change is no less important than yours.

I never said it was. And you'll notice I didn't mention one fucking whit of my own efforts until someone challenged me on my level of conservation. I certainly didn't say, "Look, I'm fucking awesome, I have low environmental impact, I'm super cool, and you suck for not being like me." Somehow, however, even when I've expressly said the opposite, people only hear that.

God damn it, this has got me pissed off. There's really nothing that troubles me more than people reading things into what I've written that I did not intend, much less reading things into what I've written that I've expressly stated I don't intend. So sorry if I sound pissed, but I am.

Quote from: EngineOkay, so the rule is, I can't rant about the environment? I ranted about the media, earlier, without a ripple in the pond. Is there something about the environment, in particular, that makes it bad if I rant about it?

What the hell is this? Come on, Engine. You like to accuse people of cheap rhetorical tricks? Well, here's one right here. Stop it.

Quote from: EngineI do not perceive the logic in that statement. People seem to be reading some sense of superiority into my words that I not only did not intend, but which I have repeatedly stated I don't intend.

Well, perhaps – just perhaps – you might want to go back then, read what you wrote in post #18, and try to see how you might be coming across.

Quote from: EngineWell, that's shitty. So, if I expressly state things like, "I don't think everyone has to live this way," but then say, "I live this way," I'm judging them and being a dick? We just ignore mitigating statements as "disclaimers?" Wipe them out in favor of what people want to read into what I've said?

Here – let me help you.

Quote from: EngineI'm a, well, at least a "forest ranger type," although I'm not sure if it's kosher for me to self-identify as "rugged," and these city folk don't really know much about the environment as it is, only the environment as it's shown to them. I love their money, and they've got lots of it, and it's done a lot of good, but there's still something that grates about listening to some douche go on and on about changing sea levels when he doesn't know that his local rivers are running dry and he could do things personally to change that.

And perhaps that's a part of my objection: sure, I'm troubled that they don't bother to enjoy the nature they want to protect, but what really drives me mad is that they think buying a Prius and writing a check is all they need to do. They still shower twice a day, use a dishwasher, overwash their clothes, run the TV six hours a day, leave their computers on 24/7, and eat prepackaged food made in factories which pump out awful, awful crap. They've made changes: we couldn't have gotten where we are on issues like recycling if it weren't for the ignorant passion of city greens, and I appreciate the hell out of them, as a class, for standing up as consumers. But I wish they'd stop fucking consuming so much!

Or this:

Quote from: EngineSo shut off your damned electricity-gulping television and go outside. Walk outside the city limits, and find a small river. Walk up it. Do this every single day, until you realize you don't want or need the television: then give it to someone who was going to buy a new one. [Don't want to build another if we don't have to!] You'll be more fit, you'll use less environment-damaging energy, and you'll learn to love the earth as we rugged forester types do: personally, not vicariously.

How about that one? Look at that last line – that's not sanctimonious?

So don't be surprised when someone pushes back.

Does that help clear it up? Does that help you understand how one might "read into it"?

Quote from: James J SkachWhat the hell is this? Come on, Engine. You like to accuse people of cheap rhetorical tricks? Well, here's one right here.

Actually, it was intended to be a real question: why could I rant about the media, but not the environment? I seriously don't understand.

Seriously, pretty much everything I write is meant to be taken at face value. You kind of have to, on the internet, or things like this happen.

Quote from: James J SkachHow about that one? Look at that last line – that's not sanctimonious?

Not unless sanctimonious means something other than I think it does [showing devotion hypocritically]. Now that I think about it, driving a Prius is often sanctimonious, although in fairness I don't think most Prius drivers realize it; they want to do something, and they've been told this is a great thing they could do, so they do it without asking if it's really the best thing to do in order to accomplish their goals.

Quote from: James J SkachDoes that help clear it up? Does that help you understand how one might "read into it"?

Not really, no, but I appreciate that we've gotten into the calm place.

I made what I'd call, at worst, a call to action, an encouragement of a way in which people could make themselves healthier and happier, and benefit the world at large: chuck the TV and go outside. I like that more than sitting inside, watching TV and writing checks to the Sierra Club; I think it results in more meaningful change for everyone. And in case I haven't made it clear, I don't think the fact that I do those things makes me "better" or "superior" to anyone else, and if I somehow communicated that, I did so in error.

Quote from: EngineActually, it was intended to be a real question: why could I rant about the media, but not the environment? I seriously don't understand.

Oh. Maybe I do: do you suppose the rants would have been received differently on, say, a board full of media pundits? Do people just not mind criticism so long as it's aimed elsewhere? That'd be kind of sad.